but also marks a milestone for Wired: its first ever console launch title. The Falconeer is a open-world air combat game from developer Tomas Sala, coming to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC on November 10th. For the publisher’s first-ever launch title, they’ve certainly picked a pretty looking one. Basically, think dogfighting but with massive, rideable birds: marrying a gorgeous art-style with frantic gameplay. It’s fresh and imaginative and will let people show off their fancy new toy this Christmas. Sala himself has shared his excitement about what can be achieved with the new hardware, promising both a 120fps frame rate mode and graphical fidelity not possible on current consoles. In a recent Unity post, Sala shared his surprise at the power of both the S and X, stating: “There’s no tradeoff between graphics and performance with this generation; we get both! Series X is running on that full PC spec with no compromise. That wasn’t possible on the previous generation of consoles.” “It’s an exciting time in the industry” Zullo adds. “Things are a little bit messy on the communications side from both format and tech partners, I think COVID has obviously not helped. But yeah, next gen is going to be a big feature for us.” MARTHA IS DEAD The Falconeer won’t be Wired’s only next-gen offering for long. Coming to Xbox Series X|S, and PC next year is Martha is Dead – the latest offering from developer LKA, with whom Wired has a healthy and long-standing relationship.
“We’ve been working with the LKA studio for about four years now. We worked on their first project, The Town of Light, which was an incredibly important title for us as a company. It was a sort of parallel journey, as it spearheaded setting up Safe in Our World. So as a project, it was fundamental to Wired’s growth, our relationship with LKA and setting up the mental health charity.” As for Martha itself, the title is a psychological horror taking place in World War II-era Tuscany. The titular Martha is found dead, with players taking the role of her grieving twin sister as she encounters the horrors of war and a mysterious folklore. Sounds promising. And according to Zullo, it’s a game that was seemingly destined for next-gen hardware. “Everything about Martha is bigger and better. They must have seen into the future, because this was actually before anything to do with next gen specs or hardware or anything technical was announced. Because from day one they were already using photogrammetry techniques, 4K graphics... just everything about it was next level in terms of visual fidelity. “LKA is a studio whose core strength is discussing difficult subjects, difficult narratives, with a backdrop of real settings. They’re an Italian studio, so Town of Light was based in a real-life Italian psychiatric hospital. And Martha is based almost in the same timeline of 1944, but it’s got the backdrop of the Second World War. It has all these sorts of subjects, topics, baked into a wonderful story.” Due to Wired and LKA’s long-standing relationship, their partnership on Martha felt like a natural step.
Below: Wired has a pre-existing relationship with Martha is Dead developer, LKA
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